Friday, July 11, 2008

Downtown bike lanes -- what say you?

Bike lanes downtown -- are they working? Should there be more? Do you use them? Yay or nay. Discuss...

My two cents -- I can take 'em or leave 'em. I use them if they're along my route, but I won't go out of my way to use them. From what I've seen, for those that can't keep up with moving traffic they provide some safe harbour. I suppose having them there if nothing else reminds drivers to be more aware of cyclists on the road in general when downtown.

Seems to be a lot more bikers out this summer as compared to last summer -- gas prices and all that, I'm sure.

Gravy -- speed limit signs might help, but the most frustrating part for drivers are bikes toodling along at less than 10 mph that they reaaally have to slow down for. Even if every vehicle slowed to 25 mph downtown, they'd still be held up by these toodling types.

And let's face it -- the people we ride with (group rides) are probably among the fastest 5-10% of cyclists in Lincoln. The other 90% are toodling at much slower speeds, not exactly conducive to blending in with traffic.

Downtown is only like seven blocks long... even 10mph isn't going to kill people if they'd calm down.

Drivers get too frustrated at bikers. Drivers will stop at long lights, slow behind semi-s or tractors, wait for a ten minute train or wait for construction blockage events, but if they get behind a bike for twenty seconds, they go banannananas!

Bike lanes just make drivers mad whether there's a bike on them or not.

They had an interesting interview with a bike messenger in a Chicago paper while I was there. Lots (and lots and lots) of cyclists in downtown and in the surrounding neigborhoods. Although there are not a lot of bike paths downtown - cyclists just take the lane, there are a lot of bike paths in some of the neighborhoods like Old Town that border the downtown - Loop area.

Their pet peeves (in order)

1) Pedestrians who walk into bike lanes w/out checking for traffic. (Obviously, Chicago has WAY more pedestrians downtown).

2) Cab drivers - the messenger guy figures that its probably because messengers and cab drivers are both in a hurry to get to their destination.

3) Drivers on cell phones.

4) Buses that can't wait 5 seconds for the cyclist to clear the bus stop area or are not looking and squeeze the cyclist into the gutter.

There are towns that I've been to in Europe that have a bike path next to the sidewalk, then another curb, and then the street.